the United States
Fractional AI officer for the United States companies
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Justas Butkus is a fractional AI officer based in Vilnius, Lithuania, working with US mid-market companies and scale-ups at two to four days a month. He owns AI strategy, governance and the roadmap, and builds the production systems that follow.
Short answer
US companies hire fractional AI leadership for the same reason everyone else does: a board asking questions nobody internally can answer, and pilots that never reach production. What differs is the regulatory frame and the practicalities of working with someone outside your office.
What does the market look like in the United States?
US mid-market companies move faster on adoption and slower on governance than their European counterparts, which produces a specific pattern: several AI systems already live, none of them inventoried, and a board question that suddenly requires an answer.
The other common case is a company selling into Europe that has discovered its AI obligations through a customer's procurement pack rather than through its own legal team.
What is the regulatory position?
There is no single federal AI statute equivalent to the EU AI Act. Oversight runs through existing sectoral regulators and state-level law, which varies.
- If you sell into the EU, the AI Act can apply to you. Its reach is extraterritorial: if a system is used in the EU, or its output affects people there, obligations can attach regardless of where the company is established.
- Enterprise customers increasingly set the standard. For most mid-market US companies the first real AI governance requirement arrives in a procurement questionnaire, not from a regulator.
That is the specific reason a US company might want a European fractional officer: the obligations that are hardest to answer are the European ones.
How does working remotely from the EU actually work?
- Vilnius overlaps the US morning: the East Coast from early afternoon my time, the West Coast in my evening. Enough overlap that the working day is shared rather than a narrow window.
- Most of this work is better done remotely anyway. The reading, the analysis and the building do not improve by being done in your building.
- Travel where it earns its place. Board sessions and workshops justify it; routine work does not, and pretending otherwise inflates the engagement.
- One accountable person throughout. No account team, no rotation, no handover to someone more junior after the sale.
When is this the wrong answer?
Three situations where I will say so rather than take the work.
- You already know exactly what your AI function should look like – hire permanently instead.
- Nobody owns technology at all – you need technology leadership before you need AI leadership.
- You cannot name a repeating process that is expensive enough to be worth automating – the role is premature.
Frequently asked questions
Can a fractional AI officer work with a US company remotely?
Yes, and most of this work is better done remotely. Vilnius overlaps the US morning: the East Coast from early afternoon my time, the West Coast in my evening. Board sessions and workshops justify travel; routine work does not.
Does the EU AI Act apply to US companies?
It can. The Act has extraterritorial reach: if an AI system is used in the EU, or its output affects people in the EU, obligations can apply regardless of where the company is established. Many companies meet it first through a customer procurement questionnaire rather than through a regulator.
What size of US company does this suit?
Typically fifty to five hundred employees, or a funded scale-up with an engineering team and nobody owning AI direction. Below roughly twenty people the role is usually premature.
Why hire a European fractional AI officer for a US company?
Mainly if you sell into Europe. The AI Act obligations are the ones US teams find hardest to answer in procurement, and they are the ones I work inside daily. For a purely domestic US operation, a US-based advisor is likely the better fit and I will say so.
Working with US companies
The fastest way to find out whether this fits is a short conversation about one specific process.